On Social Media: If you’re not really famous, stop acting as if you are and interact with people. Otherwise, I’ll unfollow/uncircle/undo whatever I need to so I won’t see or hear from you again. Because if you’re not really famous, and you don’t entertain the shit out of me, there is no reason for you to be around. I’m talking about pseudo-celebs. You know the ones. Maybe they’re friends with someone famous and they think it’s rubbing off on them and through some strange alchemy, making them famous by proximity. Yeah… no. Doesn’t work that way. Until you get famous on your own, stop being so damn stuck up and talk to people or I’ll drop you in the nearest chasm.

On Piracy: This comes up because I’ve run across two sites recently that are offering The Blue Paradise for free download. Maybe you think I should feel honored that you think it’s okay to give away something I worked so hard on, but I don’t. In fact, it pisses me off. Just like you, I have to pay bills. I have to buy food. I have to get the oil in the car changed. I’m just like you! and I hate it when someone steals from me because that’s what you’re doing: You’re stealing from me, you dick. When you give away my ebook, you’re taking money out of my pocket. That’s stealing by anyone’s definition. If it were up to me, I’d slap your larcenous asses in jail and let you rot. Tell you what, go into work tomorrow and put in your eight hours for free. Do that about half the week. There. Now you’re beginning to get a glimmer of how it feels when someone takes your time and experience and knowledge and gives you nothing in return.

On Writing: Josh Olsen, screenwriter of A History of Violence: It rarely takes more than a page to recognize that you’re in the presence of someone who can write, but it only takes a sentence to know you’re dealing with someone who can’t. So very true.I continue to be amazed at the number of people getting published every day who cannot fucking write, and it infuriates me, because there are plenty of people out there who can write and should be published. It’s worse when The Person Who Cannot Write makes a bloody fortune from it, i.e., 50 Shades of Grey author E L James. I heard she was upset by comments from readers that said in no uncertain terms “The writing sucks!” “Couldn’t finish it.” “Deleted it from my Kindle after two pages.” Etc, etc, etc. Boo-hoo, honey. Despite you not being able to write, you got rich. The laws of a just universe bent and broke just for you. Random House picked up your piece of crap and reissued it in hardcover. Hollywood paid you $5M for that Twilight rip-off. So shut the hell up and please, never write anything again. You’ve contributed enough garbage to the world of publishing. (And just to be clear about this, in light of the next item on the list, this is a rant against bad writing. I do not envy James her success. I don’t think she deserves it, but her pact with the devil, performed at midnight using the blood of two book reviewers sacrificed for the occasion, paid off. If I could write that badly and make a fortune, I’d consider it because who doesn’t want to be fucking rich? …Wait, no! I wouldn’t consider it! And I couldn’t write that badly if I tried.)

25 bad Writer Behaviors: Funny as hell and all of it is true. Please pay particular attention to#17 and #21. Concerning the latter point, I’ve often opined that men who drive around with their bass turned up so loud you can hear them coming half a mile away have small dicks. I stand by that opinion. When guys do this, they are shouting, “I have a tiny cock! I have a tiny cock! I’m overcompensating for it by doing something I think is really cool but makes you want to load the shotgun and point it through a window at me! I have a tiny cock!” Yes, that’s what your unwilling, eye-rolling audience is really thinking. They want you goddamn dead before you drive down their street again.

4 Responses to Scattershot Opinions, Whether You Want Them or Not

Seriously, though, I have the same peeves. I especially can’t stand it when pseudo-celebrities and popular people (within a relatively small but fervent following) don’t interact with the rest of us when we make time from our busy lives to interact with them. It’s rude and convinces me to stop following them.

There are men with tiny cocks in my neighborhood. I have often resisted the urge to drop a brick from my 7th floor window onto their shaking and rattling car roofs.

The over-loud bass phenomenon really needs to go away. Perhaps if someone convinced them they will lose their hearing from it, they would refrain! Unfortunately, it’s a continuing sign of the breakdown in respect for others currently in vogue. Everything revolves around them, you know, and they have every right to make the lives of those around them miserable. They see no reason to grow the hell up and be adult.

Re: pseudo-celebs: I unfollowed another one yesterday. In fact, my celeb list is down to a mere handful of people I really enjoy. I don’t expect them to talk to me, but the hangers on? Pffft. GONE.